What does it mean to be human?

Humanity is a gift.

Humanity is a choice.

Everyone is biologically human.

But is everyone truly human within?

“This isn’t normal!  I know this isn’t normal!” I sob into a wet Kleenex, pressing the soft fibers against my face as if they can comfort me.  But as the tissue brushes against my nose rubbed raw from grieving, it only stings.  Slowly, I pull it away from my eyes, staring for a few seconds at the black mascara tattooed across the dampened and wrinkled surface.  In bitterness, I crumple the tissue and cast it to the floor, where it joins a multitude of wadded Kleenexes, a little family of sorrow.

Through tear-streaked eyes, I look up at my father.

“You have to stop comparing yourself to other people.  There is nothing weird about this.  You are grieving, and because you have a kind heart, it may take longer for you than it would for others.”  My father, with understanding eyes, looks at me.  He’s a marriage and family therapist and he’s seen grief far greater than mine.  I breathe in, and push the tissue box aside.

And the next day, I am comparing myself to everyone else again.  My emotions don’t match theirs; my responses are different every time.  Why is it that I, and many others, feel a need to constantly compare themselves to other people?  Other humans.  

Science tell us that humanity is a rule-book, a structured, unchanging list of characteristics.  I have two eyes.  Opposable thumbs.  Walk upright.  A highly developed brain.  Therefore, I am human.  And from a textbook or dictionary standpoint, I am correct.  Even society seems to have developed its own compilation on what it means to be a “normal” human.  “Normal” humans like to interact with others; those who don’t are considered odd.

Humanity is about far more than how you’re viewed by the social standards of normal.  Humanity is the capability for emotion that we’ve been given, and the capacity to make wise decisions about how to handle those emotions.  To be human is to love, to anger, and to grieve.  Some would argue that to hate, to lust, and to take vengeance are also characteristics of humanity.  I propose that these are merely the traits of a corrupted human nature.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the protagonist Victor Frankenstein, is a biological human, while his creation (referred to a merely ‘the monster’) is a conglomeration of human body parts.  From a scientific standpoint, the conclusions drawn are obvious.  But Shelley questions humanity on an internal level.  While the monster is a grotesque creation, referred to often as a “wretch” or “demon,” he reads classical literature, ponders his own emotions, and is tormented by isolation as he watches other humans in acts of kindness for each other.  The monster explains how he learned “to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind” (Shelley 114), which is perhaps Shelley’s view of what is means to be human.  To overcome vice with virtue.

However, what ideal humanity is, which perhaps is to overcome vice with virtue, is not reflective of the human condition.  The human condition is the frustration and loneliness that plague every human at one point in their life.  The human condition is the hateful or selfish actions that cause every human immense pain at one point in their life. It’s how we deal with those difficult times that either makes us human, or makes us monstrous or animalistic.

There’s a reason for the minor chords and woeful lyrics of the blues.  There’s a reason that the guy usually loses the girl in the country songs. And there’s a reason 60s and early 70s rock music sometimes had protest lyrics.  The inner desire for humanity within us is not satisfied by the human condition.  To be human is to dream for the best in humanity, and to try to better society through our actions.  The Rolling Stones’ song “Gimme Shelter” is an example of the disconnect between humanity and the human condition that causes so much strife in the world.  The speaker describes the human condition as a storm, referring to war, fire, rape and murder as physical representations of the conflict in our world.  Though, towards the end of the song, the speaker refers to love being “just a kiss away.”  In a symbolic sense, that last stanza is the humanity that the speaker hopes will overcome to the strife of the human condition. The speaker presents humanity as a choice.  If humanity is a choice, it’s a difficult one.  If humanity is a choice, will you choose it?